


Something New

by Roshwen



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: A Bit of Fluff, Cassandra learns something new, Could be read as romantic or platonic OT3, Gen, Granny and Jenkins have tea, Magic, She probably should have told the boys about this, Telepathy (sort of), This is blatantly ignoring the Shepherd's Crown because NOPE, a bit of angst, that's up to you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-16 09:46:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14162112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: Cassandra discovers that her new-found telepathy has an unexpected side effect. The boys are not thrilled when they find out about this, but everything turns out alright because Jenkins just happens to know the expert in this area...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you are a Discworld fan, you probably already know what Borrowing is and how this is going to go. If not, then what are you doing here? Go and read some, I promise it's far better than whatever this is.

The first time it happens, it is by accident and Cassandra doesn’t know half how lucky she is that it doesn’t end worse than it does. It is a late Sunday afternoon, and she is sitting in the windowsill of her tiny apartment, clutching a cup of cocoa and watching the grey, drizzling world outside without seeing anything. It’s a perfect quiet little moment where she can lose herself in her own thoughts. A moment in which the whirlwind that is her mind slows down to a waltz and all Cassandra has to do is breathe in the dark, rich aroma of chocolate and cream while she dances along with the numbers and patterns that are swirling around her in a gentle, pale blue haze.

Until a pigeon lands on the other side of the window and Cassandra's toughts turn from Maxwell's demon to _rain wind air air wind rain wet cold_ _hunger_ _air wind rain wind wind cold._ It's only there for a second and then the pigeon takes off again, disappearing over the roof of the building while Cassandra lands back into her own mind with a sharp jolt of nerve and muscle. Her mug of cocoa is down on the floor, bright red shards in the middle of a spreading light brown puddle, but Cassandra barely notices as she gasps in a deep breath and tries to shake off the feeling that she is suddenly covered in feathers. It itches, and as she carefully hops down from the windowsill, her arms don't really move with the rest of her body; they are folded against her sides so the walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water _and some breadcrumbs perhaps yummy breadcrumbs_ becomes more of a waddle.

It's only after she has poured herself a glass of water (no breadcrumbs) and slowly sipped it down that Cassandra finally gets the feeling that she is completely in her own right mind again. She puts the glass down. It clinks against the countertop, but that small sound is drowned out completelyin the silent scream of _what the hell just happene_ _d_ as she puts her elbows on the counter to drop her face in her hands, almost physically forcing herself to _stand stilll and think_ for a moment before she flies off into panic mode.

So her mind was just taken over by a pigeon. That is new.

Of course, after the ~~miracle~~ surgery, Cassandra knows her mind has been... different. Her gift is still there, _thank god,_ but it has a new dimension now, something that goes beyond the realms of maths and physics. Ezekiel called it 'epic new mojo' and pretended he wasn't a little freaked out when Cassandra discovered she could now plant thoughts into people's heads. Jake gave her a worried look, which she hated, and told her to be careful, which she also hated even though Cassandra knows he did have a point. Eve and Jenkins looked at her with matching frowns before Eve ordered her to _not_ use it before she knew exactly what was going on. Jenkins merely went 'hmm' and vanished into his lab, which was by far the response Cassandra liked the best.

But Cassandra has done her research, scant as the available information has been. She has been careful. If she uses her new powers at all, she only does so when on a case, and only as a last resort.

And now she has somehow briefly become a pigeon. O-kay.

As she rinses the glass and then grabs some paper towels to deal with the cocoa tragedy, Cassandra can feel herself growing calmer. After all, it's not like this is the first time she has experienced something supernatural. It isn't even the first time something has messed with her mind, and thinking a couple of pigeon thoughts is far nicer than suddenly feeling the urge to black out half of Europe. And besides, even though it had been a shock, feeling like a pigeon was kind of _nice_ in a weird sort of way. It was a lot more quiet than her own mind, for a start. A pigeon does not think many thoughts, and it was very possible that she had thought them all during the two second mind meld.

If this is another side effect of the surgery, Cassandra thinks, it could have been a lot worse. Which is why she methodically cleans up the cocoa, throws the shards of her mug in the trash (and takes a moment to mourn the loss of it, because of course it had to happen while she was holding her favorite mug), and then settles back into the windowsill.

She keeps a careful guard on her mind this time. Without knowing exactly what or how or why things happened, Cassandra does suspect it did so mainly because she had become almost completely unfocused while staring out of the window. Her mind had been wide open, almost literally wandering, and if you believed in such things as telepathy and mind meld magic, she had been a prime target for any curious being that passed by. So this time, as she looks out into the still drizzling street, she keeps her focus. Keeps herself grounded with the help of the first twenty digits of pi rolling over and over through her mind, as she sits and watches and waits.

After five minutes of sitting and watching and waiting, another pigeon lands on the windowsill. Or maybe it's the same pigeon, Cassandra can't tell. It looks the same, and even though she can't hear its thoughts, she bets they are the same as well. It shuffles a bit, from left to right, as it shudders its wings together, glad to be a little out of the rain for a moment. Cassandra watches, unable to move and still keeping a firm clamp on her mind, watches for an endless moment until the pigeon decides that it has more important things to do. It takes off in a flutter of wings and Cassandra breathes out.

That went well.

Which means it's time for step two. Not now, of course, because now Cassandra needs to gather her toughts and calm down because she's starting to breathe rather rapidly again. It would probably also be a good idea to write everything that just happened down. After all, Cassandra is a scientist and she is not going to abandon her principles. Although she might have to find the right words first, because even in the wondrous world of mathemagics, _what the hell_ probably isn't going to cut it as an explanation or description. And lastly, she needs to do more reseach. _Book_ research before she delves headfirst into the practical side of things.

Now, if only she knew a place where shemight be able to find more information on all kinds of weird mind magic...

\---  
  
Two days later, and it's a quiet, non-apocalyptical morning in the Annex. Which suits Jake fine, because it means he can finally spend some time delving into possible locations of the land of Punt. He has just sat himself down with a pile of crumbling manuscripts, all of which look promising enough, and which would be interesting even if they _don't_ have anything to say about Punt at all, when he hears footsteps approaching and a tense, scratching voice cuts through the silence. 'Stone, do you know if Cass has gotten in yet?'

Jake looks up, into a pair of worried dark eyes and if Ezekiel looks worried, there is always cause for alarm. Add that to the fact that his question is about Cassandra, who apparently has not come into work yet (it's nearing 10am now), and Jake can feel his heart rate pick up with budding panic. 'No, haven't seen her,' he says slowly. 'You tried calling her?'

Ezekiel nods. 'Baird has,' he says, biting his lip and Jake's panic is cranked up another notch. 'She's not answering.'

'Maybe she overslept,' Jake offers, knowing it sounds lame, but it's better than voicing the alternative. The alternative that he, that all of them have lived with since the moment they became Librarians. Since the moment that Flynn oh so casually said ' _oh, right, with your tumor.'_

The alternative that one day, Cassandra might not come into work in the morning. Or at all.

And it's a stupid thought, stupid and irrational and _wrong_ because they don't _have_ to worry about that anymore. Cassandra isn't dying anymore. There is no more tumor, no more brain grape, because there has been a miracle. Whatever is going on, whatever reason she has for her absence, it is most likely _not that._

But still Jake's heart is slowly climbing up into his throat as he looks at Ezekiel, who is smiling a tense and not at all relieved smile. 'Might be,' Ezekiel says, aiming for light and missing by a mile. 'But if she's not here in twenty minutes, I think we'd better go and check on her.'

'Twenty minutes,' Jake says, nodding and praying that that will be enough time for Cassie to get her cute butt into the Annex.

As he returns to his manuscripts and his notebooks, finding the land of Punt suddenly does not seem all that important anymore.

\---  
Twenty-five minutes later, they are standing in a dingy hallway and knocking at Cassandra's front door.

Thirty minutes later, after knocking and calling have failed to produce an answer, they are standing in Cassandra's living room while Ezekiel puts his lockpicks back into his pocket. 'I'll take the bathroom and bedroom,' he says, as casual as if they are going to look for a misplaced Library book. 'You check here and in the kitchen.'

Jake knows what Ezekiel is doing and what the odds are where they'll find Cassandra (if she's here at all, which Jake fervently hopes she isn't), but he doesn't protest. He just nods and takes off to the left, into the living room proper, while Ezekiel turns to the right, down the narrow hallway to the bedroom.

Cassandra's apartment is tiny, and it takes Jake all of twenty seconds to verify that both the living room and the kitchen are devoid of red-haired mathemagicians. It takes him another thirty seconds to gather himself enough to turn around and make his way back to the front door, and then past the front door and down the hallway that leads to the bedroom.

The hallway Ezekiel went down, and has not returned from yet.

The bedroom door is open, a gaping dark hole that looks uncannily like the thoughts that are whirling through Jake's mind. And which come to a crashing halt as he reaches the threshold and sees Ezekiel, down on his knees next to Cassandra's bed, frantically muttering under his breath while two of his fingers are latching on to an alabaster neck in a desperate attempt to find a pulse.

That is all Jake sees. All he _wants_ to see, because he is _not_ looking at the entire picture here. He is _not_ looking at Cassandra's body, unmoving and pale between the electric pink covers, a color that clashses horrendously with her flaming hair. He is _not_ looking at Ezekiel's face, cracking and splintering as he keeps counting, keeps counting, keeps counting, far longer than Jake knows he should.

All he sees are two fingers against white skin and the shattering of the world.

Until suddenly Ezekiel slumps forward, letting out a giant whoosh of breath as well as a string of cursewords. That is when Jake jolts back into action as well. He rushes over, skidding down onto the floor next to Ezekiel and reaching under the covers for Cassandra's hand, wrapping his work-hardened fingers around her delicate wrist.

At first, he feels nothing and his mind goes numb with _no._ There is no pulse, barely any warmth, nothing but the pressure of Ezekiel sagging against him as it is now Jake's turn to start counting.

He makes it through ten terrifying mississippies before he feels the faintest blip pass under his fingertips and Ezekiel, who has grown tenser and tenser with every mississipi, slumps back against him.

'That's a pulse, isn't it?' Jake mutters, his mind soaring weightless with relief.

Neither of them hear the faint scrabbling of a crow landing on the outside of the bedroom window. Neither of them notice it sitting there, pausing with its head tilted and watching them with a beady eye that looks far too intelligent, even for a corvid.

Neither of them pay the bird any mind as Ezekiel nods, swallowing heavily before he says: 'We'd better call Jenkins.'

  



	2. Chapter 2

The night is dark and damp and cold, but the cat that is huddled on the grey concrete against the wall of a 24 hour store doesn't care. It is used to nights like this, and this is one of the better ones: it is still moderately dry, thanks to the store overhang and the protection the building offers. The building exudes just enough warmth to keep the chill at bay and since it is already after midnight, the humans mainly come in for hot, ready-to-go food which they eat immediately, and rather sloppily. The cat has been there for a while now, and it has not gone hungry yet. It's true it has to share with others: pigeons who tear at pieces of bread and soggy fries with their tiny beaks, crows who chase away the pigeons before gobbling up everything edible they can find, rats who scurry in and out of the dumpster down the alley, taking their prizes with them and the occasional dog that is being taken out for a _very_ late pee-walk by its chagrined and tired looking human.

The cat retreats a little when it one of those passes by. It does not like dogs, and with good reason. But all in all, it's a pretty good night to be a cat.

A drop of rain falls from the overhang, big and fat and wet, but the cat's coat is thick enough to prevent it from landing on the sensitive skin. All it has to do is shake it off, which it does with an irritated flick of its ears. It hunches in on itself a bit more, plastering itself against the dark bricks of the store wall for warmth, and more importantly, camouflage. Being a mottled grey tabby would not be of any use in nature, where everything is some shade of either green or brown, but it is perfect for a city dweller. The cat doesn't hunt, it doesn't need to hunt when humans are such sloppy eaters, but it also does not like to be seen by anything that is not also a cat. Right now, the only thing that might give it away are its eyes, huge and green, as it stares out from its private pocket of shadow into the yellow haze of the street lights beyond.

There is a scuffling and a scrabbling on the stack of boxes behind the cat as another crow lands on top of it. The cat doesn't care; it stays out of the crows' business, and they stay out of the cat's, and that arrangement suits everybody the best.

The crow hops down from the box. It moves a bit odd, a bit more uncoordinated than is usual for crows, but the cat still doesn't pay it any mind. It is too busy watching a promising drunk, trying and failing to eat a meatball sub. This is shaping up to be the best dinner of the week.

Until something sleek and silver slips leaves the crow and slips into the cat's brain. The cat barely notices, which is good because otherwise, it might have put up a fight. Which would have ended badly for everyone involved.

As it is, the sleek silver tendril quietly insinuates itself into the cat's mind, unseen and unnoticed. A few seconds later, the cat slowly gets up and moves out of the alley, into the streets. Out of his hideout and away from the promise of an easy meal, the cat and his temporary passenger walk away, while the crow shakes its head, flutters with his wings and then takes flight, up to the roof of the store. There it shakes his head again a couple of times, as if it wants to dislodge something that is stuck in there, before letting out a confused caw.

Down on the pavement, the cat wanders away. It doesn't know it yet, but it's going to be a long night.

\---

Being a bird is _amazing._ Especially after Cassandra switched from pigeons (who are in a constant state of near-panic) to crows (who are in a constant state of looking for something fun to do), she almost forgets that she is supposed to take some kind of control here, lost as she is in the feeling of the wind through her feathers, the beating of her wings through the air. As the crow takes to the sky, Cassandra's mind is filled with awe at the breathtaking display of the city gliding by underneath: a dazzling aura of glittering lights, even though all the colors are now muted in the darkness and the rain. She is completely swept up in the excitement of it all and more than happy to be just a passenger for now as the crow takes her over the rooftops, swooping down onto streets where there might be something edible to be found, swooping back up again when it turns out the thing that looked like a fry is actually a cigarette butt. Wind and air and water and darkness and light come together in a magnificent and all-encompassing new world and Cassandra loves it.

The only downside is that being a bird is exhausting. Or rather, birds are easily exhausted, and Cassandra spends almost forty-five minutes freewheeling through the air before her wings get too heavy to continue. She can feel its tiny lungs start to burn, its heart start to pump heavier and heavier with each beat against the air, so at last, she lets it crash land on a stack of boxes in a dingy alleyway, just off one of the main shopping streets of Portland.

There's a cat in that alleyway. A big grey tom, looking rough and street-hardened and _perfect._ It's not as fast or exciting as the bird was, but because it's so much nearer to the ground, Cassandra sees a lot more of the city. She slides over into the cat, so she can start exploring new nooks and crannies near the buildings she already knows, discovering back alleys and passageways that she must have passed a million times and yet has never seen before. Tonight, she discovers and navigates them by sight, smell and whisker.

As she lets the cat take the reins, because it is his mind after all, Cassandra marvels at the way the city looks, not from the air this time, but from 10 inches off the ground. It's _huge._ Giant buildings loom over her, with gaping black holes for doorways and window. This city isn't a festival of colored lights; this city is huge and dark and kind of scary, although she can feel the confidence of the tom cat and that's another thing that's new: she has never been out this late, on her own, and felt so completely safe. Despite the dangers she sees, of cars and angry humans and angrier dogs, the cat meanders his way through the maze of narrow streets that is his kingdom without care, taking his invisbile passenger with him.

The only moment Cassandra decides to nudge the cat in a certain direction, is when they get to a new block of luxury apartments, with a magnificent view over the Willamette river. But the lights on the top floor are already out, and even if they weren't, Cassandra has no idea how to get the cat all the way up there without it being seen, or chased away.

She does notice the rather dingy pickup truck in the parking lot, however. It seems rather out of place between the Lexuses and Porsches, and the cat spends a good long minute staring at it before it turns around and walks back the way it came from.

\---

'Help her?' Ezekiel says, looking up at Jenkins with wide eyes. He is still on the floor, as is Jake, and his hand is still latched on to Cassandra's pulse point, as is Jake's. Jake's other arm is wrapped around Ezekiel’s shoulders, both offering support and looking for it, because Cassandra might not _be_ dead, she _looks_ dead enough to make renewed panic rise whenever he looks at the peaceful, pale face on the vibrant pink pillow.

'Oh dear,' Jenkins says in that infuriating, disappointed tone of voice. He heaves a sigh and shakes his head as he makes his way over to the bed. 'I will do my best, but I will also be honest with you, gentlemen. This is not usually within my area of expertise.'

He bends over, gently removing Ezekiel's hand to check Cassandra's pulse himself. 'Hmm.'

'But you know what's going on,' Jake says, eyes fixed on Jenkins' inscrutable expression. Which is enough of a clue in itself for Jake to know he's right.

Jenkins straightens up, a dark furrow on his bro as he scans the room. 'I do, Mr. Stone. But as I said, my experience in this matter is rather limited. All I can do, is ask you to open up that bedroom window and _don't chase away that bird over there, please, Mr. Jones,_ and then the two of you had better go back to the Annex. If everything goes as I hope it will, she should be back with us in a matter of minutes.'

Jake can't help but notice the doubt in Jenkins' voice, which is enough to send fresh chills down his spine. 'And if it doesn't?'

'If it doesn't,' Jenkins says, turning around and looking at Jake, 'if it doesn't, Mr. Stone, then I'm afraid we are going to need outside help.'


End file.
